Virus dances onto Mac OS X

Malware authors have created a proof-of-concept virus that's capable, in theory at least, of infecting Mac PCs running OS X. The Macarena virus isn't spreading and even in the highly unlikely event your Mac catches the infection it doesn't do any real harm.

The low-threat pathogen Illustrates the point that Macs, just like Linux boxes, aren't immune from computers viruses even though incidents of infection on these machines remains as rare as finding hen's teeth. Windows machines have for years been the principal target for virus writers and there's no sign that will change anytime soon, if ever.

Mac viruses were relatively common at the dawn of personal computing, but these days the overwhelming majority of viruses are Windows specific. Macarena isn't the first piece of malware capable of infecting Mac OS X machines. Of the handful of Mac OS X pathogens ever created only the Leap Trojan has been spotted in the wild. ®